<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>An Ocean of Blood Between Us by clenastia</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24725074">An Ocean of Blood Between Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/clenastia/pseuds/clenastia'>clenastia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Revolutions are Born of a Thousand Small Fires [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fairy Tail, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, I havent caught up on FT canon anyway, M/M, Magic - Freeform, Please Don't Hate Me, Seriously send help, Zeref - Freeform, Zeref/Mavis freeform, accuracy? who needs it, but it just happened, does it count as character death if he keeps coming back?, i dont know if the violence is that graphic, i think im the first person to ever write this ship, im pretty sure Mavis and Zeref never interacted like this in canon, send help, some Zeref/Mavis, theres only one spot really, this is why we dont write at 3 am, warning: dysfunctional relationship, what is this hell-ship, why is skull a character now</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:55:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24725074</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/clenastia/pseuds/clenastia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reborn is the greatest assassin in all of Ishgar. Working freelance, maintaining his independence despite multiple guilds trying to force him to join, he knows it, and they know it.<br/>Only, someone didn't get the memo.<br/>"Ten billion jewels if you can take the head o’the Black Wizard." </p><p>Or: That one Zeref x Reborn fic that absolutely no one asked for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zeref Dragneel/Mavis Vermillion, Zeref Dragneel/Reborn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Revolutions are Born of a Thousand Small Fires [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787686</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>96</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Everything I know about Reborn (from fanfic): He’s an intellect snob, he loves coffee, he’s the World’s Greatest Hitman, he can read minds, he has a shape-shifting chameleon named Leon, and he’s a mathematical genius who’s got like, half a dozen degrees.<br/>Everything I know about Zeref (I still haven’t seen past Key to Starry Sky arc which means I have like two episodes of content and spoilers to base everything off of): He’s a genius, he wants to die, he sometimes cares about everything and sometimes cares about nothing, he can care about people as long as he treats it like a game and them only like pieces to control, and he both loved and murdered Mavis (accidentally).<br/>Things that are relevant to this fic that come from a massive FT AU I will write some day: Zeref is a good cook, Zeref is extremely touch-deprived and longs for physical contact, Zeref is attracted to highly intelligent people (he’s asexual, but people who can keep up with him? Especially people who love creating new spells as much as he does? Zeref loved Mavis because she was warm and kind and caring, but also because we canonically know Mavis to have been very intelligent – creating spells and earning the name of Fairy General/Fairy Tactician over the course of a war, and in my AU Zeref loved her as much for that as for the kindness she offered him without hesitation), yeah, I like the idea of Zeref just geeking out with a life-partner over the complexities of magic, and I especially like that life-partner to be Mavis.<br/>Natsu has to drag his idiot-genius older brother out for food sometimes, because Zeref tends to forget he’s no longer immortal and will actually starve to death (not in this fic obviously but just… as a general headcanon that I like to wish was ACTUALLY canon).<br/>Also, Zeref is an older brother, and in my AU due to a number of reasons those instincts were still very strong even 400 years later, which probably changes how I present his personality in this fic, when I’m using my AU Zeref just with a slightly changed up backstory to fit the ‘verse. Part of that backstory has always involved Zeref’s name actually meaning something – like, meta, it’s just audibly similar to Seraph, but I always liked the idea that his name had meaning in a language in-story so I incorporate that into my AUs.<br/>Yeah I think that’s everything important. Enjoy this crazy hell-ship of mine or not as you will THIS IS WHY I DON’T WRITE AT 3 AM YOU GUYS.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I can kill anyone.” </p><p>It’s not a boast, for all that Reborn lounges at the bar with particular arrogance. It’s just a statement of fact, offered in response to some pathetic fool doubting his ability to do a job.</p><p>It’s even true.</p><p>For as long as Reborn’s been Reborn, he’s never once received a target he couldn’t kill. Some he <em>wouldn’t</em>, perhaps, but never anyone he couldn’t.</p><p>It’s how he knows he’s the best, for all that <em>no one</em> will call him such.</p><p>He tries not to be annoyed by it.</p><p>Killing clients is <em>such</em> bad form.</p><p>Which is why he’s so <em>irritated</em> when someone scoffs in response.</p><p>“Yeah? I gotta guy you can’t kill,” the man says, boldly swaggering over to the bar and doing his best to loom over Reborn. He slams a hand down an inch from the assassin’s drink and leans in close. “Ten billion jewels if you can take the head o’the Black Wizard.”</p><p>The bar goes silent. Reborn tilts his head laconically. </p><p>“He hasn’t been active for decades. People already say he’s dead.” The man’s eyes narrow, though his lips start to twist into a smug grin. Reborn smoothly continues as though he never planned to stop. “Though if you have information to prove the contrary, well.”</p><p>Reborn flashes his own smug smirk, lets it seep into his voice so the bar can’t doubt what he means. Behind the mask, his heart rate picks up.</p><p>Whether it’s panic or anticipation, Reborn isn’t quite sure.</p><p>The things the Dark Wizard is said to be capable of… Reborn doesn’t buy into the rumors, at least not <em>all</em> of them, but there are some things that are undeniable.</p><p>Reborn’s studied spell crafting himself, knows how to make new magic from scratch, from circles and runes and not just learned forms, so all he ever had to do is have a close encounter with <em>one</em> of the Black Wizard’s demons to know just how utterly <em>genius</em> the man is.</p><p>If anyone asks (which they don’t, at least not anymore), he vaporized the demon utterly.</p><p>He absolutely does <em>not</em> still have it, alive, as a captive for study.</p><p>
  <em>But <strong>oh </strong>every new thing he learns is just a wonder he never thought magic capable of, every new aspect pushing the boundaries of what is possible just because they <strong>can </strong>and it’s worth all the money Reborn has to spend keeping the thing alive just to get a <strong>glimpse</strong>.</em>
</p><p>“Meet me here in two days,” the man before him growls, no longer smug but still confident, “I’ll have your <em>proof</em> ready for you by then.” He turns and strides away, desperate to get the last word, so Reborn calmly sips his drink, and lets everyone else see how little he cares.</p><p>He leaves as soon as the cup’s empty, though, because he can kill anyone but he rather wishes he’d had a little more time to plan for his new target and he can’t afford to delay.</p><p> </p><p>Two days later he steps into the bar to a veritable wall of people, though they quickly part when they recognize him. He wonders how many of them are there purely because they expect him to die, as he strides unhesitatingly through the crowd.</p><p>The man waits at the bar, and hands him a sparse file that Reborn sits down to read immediately. His… client, scoffs in outrage as Reborn peruses the papers, but he ignores the man.</p><p>He packs it all back up after a couple minutes, standing and brushing off his coat as the client gets more and more frustrated.</p><p>Reborn casts a casual glance the man’s way, then speaks as he begins to walk back out. “I suppose your information broker is <em>very</em> good. I would agree, the evidence you’ve laid out does heavily imply that the Black Wizard is still at large. So I’ll take the job.”</p><p>The door shuts, adding a finality to his speech, and Reborn flips the file back open as he walks, studying it, because it’s hard to kill a man if you can’t find him and Reborn’s not about to let <em>that</em> be why he fails this job.</p><p>He wonders what the Wizard looks like.</p><p>No one’s ever seen his face and lived, after all.</p><p>
  <em>Proving the kill to actually <strong>be</strong> the Black Wizard won’t be easy, everyone refusing to believe it and no one knowing the man’s looks enough to verify. But that’s alright. As long as Reborn knows, he’ll be satisfied.</em>
</p><p>Perhaps he could get the man to answer a couple spell crafting questions first? There’s <em>so many</em> things he’d like to have clarified regarding that demon, after all…</p><p>And it would be tragic to kill his best source of information without even <em>trying</em> to learn.</p><hr/><p>Fairy Tail arrives onto Tenrou Island with the same zest they always do. It annoys him, if he’s honest, but Mavis <em>likes</em> them having their S-Class exams on the island, likes being able to meet new members and see old ones, likes the proof that her guild is still strong, still flourishing.</p><p>He might not be able to see or hear her, but Zeref can <em>tell</em> when she wants to gush, and in a moment of distraction as Mavis spots Makarov, he teleports away, stumbling only slightly as he alights on the far shore of the sea. His entire body aches, tingling in that way that always means he used too much magic, but Zeref ignores it.</p><p>It’s not as though it will kill him.</p><p>There’s no real goal or destination in mind, he only left to get away from Fairy Tail and Mavis, and so he wanders aimlessly.</p><p>Skirting around towns and travellers, always far enough away to ignore them, Zeref tries not to think.</p><p>About the future, or the past. Tries not to look at nature and find it beautiful, closing his eyes to even the slightest hint of movement because animals are so much harder to ignore than plants.</p><p>He tries so hard to ignore everything, deep in some nameless forest three days’ walk from the ocean shore, that he doesn’t even notice the spell - or it’s caster - until it rips through his skull.</p><p><em>Fire</em>, he thinks, feeling it sear his brain with a near-boiling heat, vaporizing bone as though it was never there to begin with - and then he thinks nothing, for a long, blissful moment.</p><p>He loathes and loves lethal injuries that damage the brain. Because for a single instant, there’s <em>nothing</em>, it’s as close to death as he’s ever <em>been</em>, and then he wakes up.</p><p>The headache that lasts for <em>hours</em> afterwards isn’t fun either, if he’s honest.</p><p>His eyes snap open, and he instinctively moves to track the position of the sun, because fire can be an unusual way to die, and he’s actually been out of it for days before after burning.</p><p>Instead he sees a human’s face as the man leans over him, golden flames dancing across his fingers, and in the time it takes Zeref to appreciate the sheer genius of the spell that hit him, he feels the curse surge.</p><p>He closes his eyes and tries to remind himself that he just doesn’t <em>care</em> anymore.</p><p>Mavis is dead, and by his own hand. He doesn’t have room in his heart for anymore guilt.</p><hr/><p>All of Reborn’s instincts scream at him, and he throws out as much magic as he can, leaping backwards before he even knows why.</p><p>He stumbles, falling to his knees just outside the border that suddenly appears. His magic feels gutted, ripped from him and extinguished with no sign to show for it, and he shuffles backwards, just a little bit further away from the line that suddenly, clearly, divides a living world from a <em>dead</em> one.</p><p>His heart races in his chest, and he couldn’t say if it takes a minute or an age, before the Black Wizard slowly sits up.</p><p>What was once a tightly enclosed forest space is now practically a clearing, dead and rotted and surrounded on all sides by fresh, living wood.</p><p>Distantly, Reborn thinks that if he survives this, he is going to dig up <em>every rumor that ever existed</em> because at this point he’s ready to believe it.</p><p>And then the Black Wizard’s meandering eyes land on him, kneeling at the tree line, still clutching his chest against the burning <em>ache</em> that is his magical core - and widen in surprise.</p><p>“You’re alive,” he says with soft wonder, and Reborn wonders if people surviving the first strike is so rare as to warrant that sort of reaction.</p><p>
  <em>Gods that must be so boring.</em>
</p><p>Reborn doesn’t tense, tilting his head casually to show he’s listening, as he drags up every ounce of magic he has left. It burns, scraping him raw from the inside out, but he has no intention of dying here.</p><p>The Black Wizard sighs, looking away. “It won’t do you any good. I can’t die.”</p><p>He says it with the same surety that Reborn said, “I can kill anyone,” and none of the arrogance. Clearly, though, the man has no intention of killing him just yet, so Reborn stands up, dusts himself off, and strides forward. He makes it two steps before having to throw himself backward yet again, and he watches as the wave of pure death goes just a bit further this time than it did the last.</p><p>When he looks up, the Black Wizard is watching him again, one eyebrow raised in wry amusement. “You’re good,” he offers with a smile.</p><p>A <em>smile</em>.</p><p>Reborn wastes precious magic scanning himself for drug or spell residue.</p><p>He finds nothing.</p><p>The Black Wizard stands, and Reborn wonders if their peaceful dialogue is over. </p><p>But the man doesn’t make any move towards Reborn, just rubs at his head, dirt and ash flakes falling from his hair.</p><p>There’s not even a <em>bald patch</em> to show for Reborn’s perfect kill-shot, and he’s <em>offended</em>.</p><p>The Black Wizard looks back up, confused. “You’re still here? Do you <em>want</em> me to kill you?” He asks it with a mild curiosity, like the idea of someone wanting to be killed by him is a novel idea and he’s willing to see where it goes.</p><p>Somehow, Reborn gets the feeling the guy doesn’t actually interact with his own worshippers very much. Some of them are <em>absolutely</em> the sort of people who would commit suicide at the man’s feet just for the pleasure of dying in their god’s presence.</p><p>None of this is going the way he expected at <em>all</em>, and Reborn <em>did</em> want to ask some questions on spell theory…</p><p>He leans casually against a tree, and idly inspects his hand. “I actually had a couple questions, if you don’t mind,” Reborn offers, and the Black Wizard tenses.</p><p>Reborn very pointedly doesn’t tense in return, and waits patiently. He’s treading on thin ice here, trying to chat with the most dangerous man in the world, he can afford to take things slow.</p><p>“Do you try to kill everyone before you question them? The years blur together, but I’m fairly sure the necromancer’s guild was annihilated centuries ago.”</p><p>“There was a necromancer’s guild?” Reborn abhors parroting, but he’s practically <em>friends</em> with Vongola, one of the oldest criminal organizations on the planet, and he’s <em>never</em> heard of such a thing.</p><p>A Guild implies multiple mages. Multiple <em>successful</em> mages, with the way the Black Wizard referred to his kill-first-ask-questions-later approach, which means that Necromancy must have existed as a legitimate branch of magic at some point, and all of Reborn’s intellectual curiosity sits up and takes <em>note</em>.</p><p>He wonders if the Black Wizard was a part of the guild, or perhaps its founder, or just alive at the right time to know of it. And the man answers without having to be asked, shrugging casually as if to brush off the question. “The Magic Council raided it after they started moving away from the more standard branches of Necromancy and began looking into my more… esoteric research. I know the Council also defamed them and branded their entire legacy as criminal, though I hadn’t realized they’ve been scrubbed from history…” he trails off with an idle look into the far distance, and Reborn’s never actually met an immortal before so he can be forgiven for only just now wondering what it must have been <em>like</em>.</p><p>So much history as it actually happened, uncensored by any party, standing right in front of him, and Reborn wonders how much the Wizard was there for, how much he saw and experienced that the rest of the world has long forgotten.</p><p>The other man blinks off his stupor after a moment, glancing back towards Reborn. “What did you want to ask?”</p><p>Reborn would like to step closer, draw runes out and properly discuss them, but he stays where he is. “It’s actually about your demons,” he starts, and pretends to be blind to the way the Black Wizard tenses all over again, “I was studying one and I noticed you used an unusual matrix. Layering a Kaldric formula with Hyppel runes, and binding everything to a <em>triangle’s</em> base instead of a circle… The triangle I understand, but the matrix? If you had a moment, I thought I might… pick your brain on the matter.”</p><p>The pun is perhaps a little beneath Reborn’s dignity, but the Black Wizard snorts an ungainly laugh and turns to properly face him, pulling a light pen out from behind himself as he does.</p><p>And then he starts <em>talking</em>. </p><p>The light pen changes color with little more than a thought from the Wizard, and Reborn’s pretty sure it’s custom-modified because he hasn’t seen any like that on the market, and he spares a moment to wonder <em>how</em>, but then he’s lost again in numbers and runes and equations enough to make even his head spin as the Black Wizard talks from fifteen feet away and draws on the air backwards and large enough to read without any effort.</p><p>The sun sets and rises again, the air glittering with thousands of figures, still floating, when they should have faded hours ago, and Reborn wants <em>more</em>. Already he has ideas for customizing his own magic, tweaking his spell bases and improving them, and the Wizard just keeps going, alive and animated and completely in his element as he breaks down complex equations into something <em>magnificent</em>.</p><p>The guy straight up <em>invented his own runic language</em> and Reborn <em>needs</em> to know how he did that, thinks the rumors that the Black Wizard has control over True Magic might not be rumors at all if he can tie his own made-up runes into the very fabric of magical reality - </p><p>The Magic Council gatecrashes their discussion with all the finesse of <em>Deliora</em>, and Reborn just might hate them in that moment.</p><p>The Wizard sighs, lowering his hand as he turns to face the sounds coming through the trees, loud and unignorable. “I do believe I lost track of time,” he muses, and Reborn can tell from his voice alone that they won’t be picking this discussion up and moving somewhere else.</p><p>He wonders if they <em>could</em>, if there are enough customizations on that light pen that they could just take the text with them and relocate, but the chance has long since passed him by.</p><p>“Well, it’s been fun,” Reborn starts, calling out for Leon telepathically, “but I’ve still got a standing job to assassinate you, so if you could… <em>not</em> disappear off the face of the map again, I’d like to give it another shot.”</p><p>“Am I to reward your failure with a lecture?” the Wizard asks, eyebrow quirked even as he vanishes their text with a wave of his hand.</p><p>Reborn mourns the loss, and feels Leon crawl up his leg as he replies, smugness coating his tone. “I can’t promise not to use it against you.”</p><p>“You can’t kill me,” the Wizard rebuts, a teleportation spell already whisking him away, and all Reborn can think is-</p><p>
  <em>That wasn’t a “no”.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Zeref <em>should</em> have teleported back to Tenrou. The human - <em>an assassin?</em> - has no chance of killing him, and allowing him to even try again is a waste of time and will likely only only end with the man’s death.</p><p>He tries to tell himself that it’s purely because the assassin brought up some interesting points, and he wants to cross-reference a few books to find an acceptable answer.</p><p>He grabs the thin threads of hope that try to take root and strangles them.</p><p>It will be years yet before Natsu and the others come through the gate, and Natsu is the only one who can kill him. Hoping for anything more, anything <em>faster</em>, is foolish.</p><p>He gets the books he needs, and a few others that just looked interesting, and finds an expansive clearing two countries over in Bellum.</p><p>Food is meaningless to him, a simple pleasure that only serves to remind him of how very human he is <em>not</em>, so he takes his books and blank journals, throws up a barrier to keep out dew and moisture, and loses himself in study.</p><p>It might have been as long as two weeks, he thinks, when the lance of fire rips through his spine and <em>spreads</em>, searing all his internal organs and attempts to burn him up from the inside.</p><p>The craftsmanship that must have gone into the spell, to make it expand on its own internally instead of ripping through the other side to damage the books is astounding, but Zeref finds himself disappointed that the assassin chose such a method.</p><p>Clearly, he decided the knowledge was more important than trying to seriously kill Zeref, and he finds himself… more hurt by that than the physical agony of fire trying to devour him from the inside out.</p><p>And then there’s a boot striking his ribs, kicking him away from the books, and a second spell linked to the first, and the fire <em>changes</em>.</p><p>He chokes on a scream, can’t even figure out what sort of alteration the assassin made to the spell from the mind-breaking <em>agony</em> of it, and then-</p><p>It stops. In that instant sort of way pain does when he should have died but didn’t.</p><p>He takes a moment to breathe, shaking off the last mental vestiges of pain, before slowly sitting up.</p><p>He can still feel an echo of the assassin’s hands on him as the man wove his second spell, burning like a brand in the back of his mind.</p><p>When he looks around, he finds the assassin standing twenty feet away and looking decidedly put-out.</p><p><em>Me too</em>, he thinks in commiseration, because whatever the man did was <em>brilliant</em> and it should have worked, if this world were fair at all.</p><p>He already knows he’ll be back a third time, as he slowly drags himself to his feet.</p><p>That sort of ruthless genius…</p><p>
  <em>If anyone could stand a chance…</em>
</p><p>“I suppose I should ask your name,” Zeref muses aloud, “If this is going to be a regular occurrence.”</p><hr/><p>Reborn won’t admit to the single moment of regret he feels, when the Black Wizard’s scream cuts off with a distinctive finality.</p><p>Perhaps mostly because the man keeps breathing afterwards, and it is both utterly unfair and absolutely fascinating.</p><p>Reborn’s professional pride as an assassin is absolutely <em>smarting</em> by now, but that part of him that loves learning and expanding his horizons practically purrs in pleasure.</p><p>And then the Wizard stands up, looking for all the world like a man dragged unfairly from his nap, and asks for his name.</p><p>He considers for a moment, but… well. If this <em>is </em>going to be a regular occurrence, it would make things easier. “Reborn,” he offers, and the Wizard snorts another ungainly laugh at the irony of it as Reborn continues, “But I have to wonder - there seems to be some debate as to whether Zeref is even your real name, especially considering the… linguistic roots.” He smirks as he says it, just to make sure his companion knows <em>exactly</em> which linguistic roots he’s talking about, and doesn’t spare any time to worry about whether that’s a killable offense.</p><p>All the best assassins court death, after all, and while there isn’t any <em>actual</em> debate over the Black Wizard’s name, Reborn <em>meant</em> it when he promised to research everything, and he <em>really </em>has to wonder.</p><p>It’s not every day you find something as priceless as the idea that the world’s most feared criminal is named <em>gentle</em> in some archaic, backwater language most people have never heard of.</p><p>And the feminine emphasis of gentle at that.</p><p>But the Black Wizard doesn’t kill him for it, only stares in surprise. “How did you know it was Ethelian? I’m fairly sure most people reference it as having Caelium ancestry.”</p><p>Ethelos was a country wiped off the map over <em>six-hundred</em> years ago, long before the Black Wizard was supposed to be alive, and Reborn only expected a man disgruntled at Reborn deliberately mistranslating his name.</p><p>With the Wizard’s pale skin and sharp features, he could pass as ancient Caelum nobility. And Zayef, the closest traditional name to Zeref in the peninsula, translates to a much more fitting <em>comfortable darkness</em>. The modified ‘Zan’, for darkness, and ‘Yeffa’ for comfort or shelter.</p><p>The idea that the Black Wizard might be from the <em>continent</em> is nearly enough for Reborn to turn around and get right back to researching the man, because clearly <em>all his sources are wrong</em>.</p><p>He pushes down the urge with the thought that the Wizard hasn’t tried to kill him from asking questions yet.</p><p>“The languages is about as dead as you <em>should</em> be, so I figured you two had something in common,” Reborn offers, because why admit he didn’t expect this if he doesn’t have to?</p><p>Zeref huffs, shaking his head. “My father had Ethel heritage, and wanted to keep to his ancestors’ old naming traditions. Nothing more than that.” He pauses for a moment, stepping forward to pick up a book. “I looked into some things you said last time, and I believe I have a better answer now to your question of the Stygthian concentric circle formula. We can start there, unless you had a different line of questions?”</p><p>Reborn shakes his head, eagerly moving closer, until he’s standing at the comfortable fifteen feet they did before, and he pulls a notebook and pen out of his bag. “Whenever you’re ready.”</p><p>Zeref grins, wide and boyish, and Reborn has perhaps a second to wonder how old the Black Wizard <em>physically</em> is, before the man proceeds to blow. His. Mind.</p><p>He’s certain, in the distant way of someone utterly distracted, that he’ll be dreaming concentric circles for weeks.</p><hr/><p>It’s so easy to forget, being immortal, that other people need such irritating things as <em>food</em>, and <em>water</em>, and <em>bathroom breaks</em>.</p><p>But Reborn is brilliant, and doesn’t shy away from the sometimes dark places his brain goes when he’s spellcrafting, treats an offhand comment about destroying an island in an experiment as exactly that instead of <em>freaking out for two hours straight, <strong>Mavis</strong></em>.</p><p>It wasn’t even like the island was inhabited, for all that Reborn doesn’t ask, and their lesson/debate/conversation continues until they run out of food for Reborn to consume.</p><p>The assassin looks as visibly annoyed as Zeref feels, and, well… it never hurts to offer.</p><p>“Regrowing limbs isn’t too difficult, when you’re functionally immortal.” he states, holding out his arm. And then pulls out the best ‘evil smirk’ he can, just for fun. “I promise I’m not poisonous.”</p><p>It actually takes an entire second for Reborn’s brain to process, which is the slowest Zeref has seen the man. And then Reborn’s face contorts into the clearest expression of <em>what-the-fuck</em> Zeref has ever seen on a human. He schools it quickly into a more sophisticated look, lifting his chin and looking down his nose at Zeref, but the wizard can still see his shock.</p><p>“Thanks, but I don’t know where you’ve been.” </p><p>The unsaid, <em>“You mongrel,” </em>lingers in the air between them, and Zeref can’t deny the amusement curling through him.</p><p>“Until next time, then,” he offers, scooping up his hand-written notes and leaving the other books behind as he lets his magic whisk him away.</p><p>He’ll have to remember to ask about the spell Reborn used, next time.</p><p>It totally slipped his mind.</p><hr/><p><em>What the <strong>fuck</strong>.</em> Reborn thinks as Zeref teleports away, leaving him with a pile of books and the last two minutes playing on constant repeat in his mind.</p><p>
  <em>What. The. Fuck.</em>
</p><p>He sways on his feet, forcibly reminded that they stopped their conversation because he was legitimately light-headed from hunger, and he needs to start moving now if he wants to get back to civilization before something decides he’s easy prey.</p><p>Zeref never ate so much as a bite, never even looked the <em>slightest</em> bit hungry, and some hysterical part of Reborn wonders if the man is, in fact, a god.</p><p>He reminds himself that Zeref has a <em>father</em>, and a <em>girl’s name</em>, and that neither of those are indicative of godhood.</p><p>He really needs food.</p><p>And he can’t help but wonder what Zeref tastes like, because Reborn has never actually engaged in cannibalism but the man went and made the offer as though he was handing out tea and <em>biscuits</em> and now Reborn can think of nothing else as his stomach churns in its incessant desire for food.</p><p>When he goes to kill the Wizard again, he’s going to make it hurt even <em>more</em>, going to make sure he sees Zeref <em>scream until his throat tears and he drowns in his own blood</em>, and until then he is going to hunt down every surviving record of Ethelos he can get his hands on because he now knows more about the Black Wizard than <em>anyone else on the planet</em> and he’s not going to let that go to waste.</p><p>But first.</p><p>The books.</p><hr/><p>Every time they meet up, Zeref expects Reborn to give up on killing him, to maybe offer a token effort before delving straight into their theory debates. And every time, Zeref finds himself surprised by the sheer brutality Reborn brings to bear in his attempts to kill the Wizard, sometimes with absolutely <em>inspired</em> spells that Zeref happily spends hours picking apart and pointing out improvements for.</p><p>He wonders if this is what having an apprentice is like.</p><p>And then he reminds himself that he Does Not Care, and this is just a means to an end, and that when Reborn inevitably stops trying to kill him he’ll just kill the assassin in turn and move on.</p><p>Eight and a half months into their… unusual acquaintance, Zeref wakes up from his nap to the disconcerting sensation of being a bodiless head, and has about half a moment to glare at Reborn for the annoyance before the magic lances out at point-blank range and renders all thought literally impossible.</p><p>When awareness pieces itself back together enough for him to sit up, Reborn groans from their customary 15-foot distance. “You were dead for ten minutes this time, that’s just not <em>fair</em>.”</p><p>Zeref can’t help tilting his head in curiosity, feeling the burn of freshly-stretched neck muscles. “You must have done something more fascinating with the spellwork than I could detect. It usually only takes three to four minutes to recover from having my head vaporized.”</p><p>“Amateurs,” Reborn scoffs, immediately launching into an explanation of his magic, and Zeref’s not about to say he did it to himself if <em>that’s</em> the attitude Reborn plans to take.</p><p>Really, the most enjoyable part of that experience was figuring out how to properly inflict that sort of damage on himself.</p><p>It was a lot harder than he expected, for sure.</p><p>The conversation meanders from there, seamlessly migrating from Reborn’s spell to the latest theorems Zeref’s been studying in the downtime between assassinations.</p><p>He’d forgotten how <em>alive</em> learning made him feel. There are days, so deeply buried in his books and spell theories, that he honestly forgets he wants to die.</p><p>And remembering always hurts twice as bad.</p><p>Reborn pulls out a picnic basket two days into their debate and tosses a piece of fruit at him, effortlessly derailing an argument he was trying to make for using the Myrcella theorem over the Accaron for a long-distance telepathy spell.</p><p>Zeref stares at the red apple in his hand, honestly befuddled. Reborn scoffs.</p><p>“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to <em>eat</em>.”</p><p>“I haven’t,” Zeref replies, rolling the apple between his hands. “But I don’t need to eat.”</p><p>“I hadn’t noticed,” Reborn utters, deadpan. “But you’ve touched it now, and I still don’t know where you’ve been. So either eat it or throw it away.”</p><p>Zeref shrugs, and eats the apple. Reborn’s hawk-like stare bores into him, and the assassin doesn’t touch his own food.</p><p>Zeref’s not sure what poison coats the apple, though it certainly makes the fruit taste rather bad, and he burns the core to nothing once he’s done.</p><p>Reborn sighs. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected that to work.”</p><p>“It doesn’t seem to have done anything at all. What sort of poison did you use?”</p><p>“I didn’t,” Reborn responds, finally digging into his own food. “I put a spell on your body while you were busy being dead, and coated the apple in a reactive potion. I guess the spell didn’t last through whatever magic you have configured to bring you back.”</p><p>“Oh no,” Zeref counters, picking up his light pen again. “If you’d successfully applied the spell, it would have stuck around. I’m just naturally resistant to certain types of magic. I doubt it ever properly anchored to me.”</p><p>It might be a dangerous hint to offer, when Natsu is only a few years away and will have many of the same natural resistances Zeref does, but the considering look on Reborn’s face promises something <em>fascinating</em>, and Zeref can always kill the man if he oversteps himself.</p><p>They dive back into their debate with gusto, Reborn occasionally plying him with food, and when Zeref asks the assassin scowls. “I refuse to be the only one taking <em>bathroom breaks</em>.” Zeref laughs, caught off-guard by the sheer offense in Reborn’s tone, but eats the food anyway.</p><p>He tries not to think about the <em>last </em>time he ate food with one hand and wrote out spell theorems with the other.</p><p>He doesn’t have much success.</p><hr/><p>It feels like the entire criminal underworld knows about his attempt to kill the Black Wizard.</p><p>It’s his own fault, he stumbled unexpectedly onto Zeref in a book shop, collection of tomes in-hand, he was within <em>touching</em> distance and hadn’t even been noticed, and he’d already made up a new spell after their last meet-up, and figured he’d just… try.</p><p>Four hundred and sixty-three dead people and no study session later, he thinks he should probably keep their assassination attempts to more private areas.</p><p>Reborn escapes the death magic by the mere skin off his teeth, so close he’s fairly sure his authentic leather shoes <em>wilt</em>, and he stumbles desperately in a forward lunge, leaping off the high bridge for just a little bit more distance between them.</p><p>Definitely a no on the public-places assassinations.</p><p>He floats in the river, because water has insulating properties against certain types of magic and it’s worth a shot, which means he has a perfect view of Zeref when he peaks over the bridge railing.</p><p>Reborn considers playing dead, because the guy is probably pissed, but he’s never really been the cowardly sort so he offers a cheerful wave instead, blowing raspberries just because he can.</p><p>Zeref scoffs and walks away, arms loaded with books, and not for the first time, Reborn wonders if he even knows what rules they’re playing by.</p><p>It’s a game, of some sort, that much is obvious. And if Reborn loses, Zeref will kill him.</p><p>He just wishes, in all the ridiculous things cultists have spoken of in regards to their so-called god, that they’d managed to come up with a rulebook he could use.</p><p>He can’t cheat if he doesn’t know the difference between what’s against the rules and what qualifies as <em>losing</em>.</p><p>He groans, idly backstroking down the river. His right foot is going numb, which is… concerning, but he’s got a medical contact in the next town over who should probably be the first to touch it.</p><p>How convenient that the river runs past both.</p><p>But, less than a week later, <em>everyone</em> knows his ill-devised attempt to assassinate Zeref.</p><p>Which, on the one hand is nice, because it means his client can’t keep calling him a liar when he says he’s made multiple attempts.</p><p>On the other hand…</p><p>Reborn survived after attempting to kill the Black Wizard.</p><p>And now people believe all those times he said he tried before.</p><p>Reborn has survived <em>multiple attempts</em> against the Black Wizard’s life.</p><p>And he isn’t dead.</p><p>He can barely take two steps in <em>any</em> city without being swarmed. The Magic Council wants to bring him in, the cultists want to question him, other assassins want to kill him (which is, at least, nothing new, but he’s never had to deal with so many at <em>once</em> before and ends up having to use some of his newly-invented spells to keep up), and, of course, it seems as though the <em>entire</em> black market for freelance assassins wants to hire him.</p><p>The guild recruiters learned a long time ago that no means no, and only two try their luck. They die spectacularly, but he can’t handle potential clients the same way, much to his eternal frustration.</p><p>And so, the next time he actually has enough free time to try again, it’s already been three months. He hopes Zeref hasn’t wandered off to whatever hiding places he prefers, especially since their first-murder anniversary is right around the corner.</p><p>He’d hate to be the only one to remember, after all.</p><hr/><p>Zeref doesn’t quite know what to expect when Reborn fails to show up within the three-week average they usually work inside.</p><p>
  <em>-The small of his back still feels warm, like a brand in the shape of a hand against his skin, and he still can’t help but wonder at the fact that Reborn got so close, triggered his curse, and <strong>still</strong> managed to escape unscathed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He tries not to think about all the other people who weren’t so lucky, strangers just caught out as victims of his inability to stop caring-</em>
</p><p>A month and a half passes, and Reborn still doesn’t show. Zeref collects more books, continues to lose himself in studying, and tries to be patient.</p><p>Three months in the mountain of books is four rows deep and rises to his hips on all of them, a fifth stack off to the side filled with his own notes and diagrams.</p><p>He should leave, return to Tenrou island to wait out Natsu’s return in isolation like he’d planned, but some foolish, tiny voice keeps whispering, <em>“One more day,”</em> and he can’t bring himself to ignore it.</p><p>Three months, one week, and four days after that disastrous attempt in the city, Reborn’s return is heralded by an explosion of agony in his leg sharp enough to make him cry out as he falls to his knees.</p><p>He recognizes the taint of Dreyv root in the wound almost immediately, and thinks that maybe he should have warned Reborn about that.</p><p>It’s not going to kill him, but <em>gods and spirits</em> it’s going to hurt.</p><p>And then there’s a second shot, right at the base of his neck, and <em>fire</em>, because Reborn is a <em>sadist</em> and Zeref will not believe otherwise.</p><p>He screams until death takes him.</p><hr/><p>Zeref sounds like a child when he screams.</p><p>He sometimes looks young, but for the first time, as the Black Wizard shrieks and shrieks and <em>shrieks,</em> Reborn honestly, truly questions <em>how</em> young.</p><p>Because those screams could never come out of any man’s throat after puberty.</p><p>He thinks, hysterically, of Zeref-The-Immortal-Teenager, desperately trying to teach himself how to keep his voice from breaking even though his body won’t age enough to properly settle his register, and wonders how likely that is.</p><p>The screams cut off with an abrupt finality that has Reborn setting a timer.</p><p>And then he waits.</p><p>An hour passes, then two, and Reborn begins to wonder at his success. Leon crawls closer, trying to investigate his human’s new companion/target, but the assassin scoops up the lizard before he can.</p><p>“Not yet Leon,” he chides. “We’ll give it til sunrise before we count our success, hm?”</p><p>It seems logical enough to him, at least. Zeref uses <em>classical</em> magic, magic bound to the cycles of the moon and sun and seasons. Slower, but more powerful in so many ways. Dawn signals new beginnings, change for the better, and if Zeref’s magic hasn’t brought him back by the next sunrise, then and <em>only</em> then will Reborn mourn.</p><p>In the meantime, he’s got a trouble-seeking lizard to entertain.</p><p>He doesn’t want to think of what Zeref would do if Leon ate the books.</p><p>He <em>usually</em> spits them back out intact, but Reborn doesn’t want to be the one explaining that to <em>Zeref</em> of all people.</p><p>Especially when the Wizard might want to experiment.</p><p> </p><p>Four and a half hours later, just as the last rays of the sun’s light disappear from the earth, Zeref stirs.</p><p>And Reborn wonders what sort of immortality magic would bind to the cycle of sun<em>sets</em> instead of sun<em>rises</em>.</p><p>He makes a note of it on a blank page in his book, because that sounds downright <em>suspicious</em>.</p><p>Reborn is the greatest assassin in the world, and no matter how much he’s starting to like the Black Wizard, he’s not going to stop until the man is dead.</p><p>He can always mourn later.</p><hr/><p>For the first time since the day he woke up cursed, Zeref is dragged back to life <em>still hurting</em>.</p><p>The sheer novelty of it has him laying there, shifting limbs and trying to figure out why.</p><p>He never hurts after he’s revived from death.</p><p>Hope kindles like a treacherous flame within his chest, and he speaks ahead of his thoughts.</p><p>“Everything hurts.”</p><p>“Oh?” Reborn’s voice asks, pitched to carry over distance. “I would imagine so, considering how you screamed.”</p><p>Zeref laughs, and feels his throat burn at the motion. His voice is still hoarse from screams, and it’s honestly <em>exciting</em>. “I never hurt, after I come back. But…”</p><p>“Indeed,” Reborn muses, and Zeref hears the scratching of pen on parchment. “Any particular aches or pains that stand out? Anything you don’t remember feeling before? Or perhaps anything that is suspiciously <em>free</em> of pain?”</p><p>“You sound like a physician,” Zeref complains, though he thinks over the questions regardless. “Nothing stands out though. Except…” he trails off, trying to place the sensation, and Reborn stays quiet, letting him gather his thoughts.</p><p>“I think I’m… craving?” Zeref asks, more a question than a statement, and his stomach gurgles faintly.</p><p>“You’re hungry.” Reborn says with utter deadpan, and Zeref painstakingly rolls over to look at the man.</p><p>“That… sounds likely,” Zeref responds, still confused.</p><p>It’s been so <em>long</em>, after all.</p><p>How odd.</p><p>A picnic basket bops into his head, and Zeref startles, scrambling to catch it out of the air. Across the field, Reborn grimaces as he stretches out his fingers, a purely psychological response to strenuous magic.</p><p>Zeref’s done it no few times himself, before he just stopped caring.</p><p>“We can chat after you eat then,” Reborn encourages, when Zeref just stares.</p><p>He jerks his gaze down to the basket, and decides to dig in.</p><p>He’s not even sure he <em>tastes</em> it, honestly.</p><hr/><p>Zeref eats like a hungry teenager, and Reborn adds one more tick to the, “never made it past puberty” box.</p><p>And he eats a <em>lot</em>.</p><p>The brat looks downright <em>mournful</em> once he’s eaten everything, nevermind that was <em>enough food to last Reborn two weeks</em>!</p><p>How he wishes the asshole weren’t so paranoid about his personal space so Reborn could just march over there and <em>strangle him bare-handed</em>.</p><p>Sure, it wouldn’t work, but at least it’d <em>feel good</em>.</p><p>Zeref has the audacity to not even understand why he’s angry, when they start talking magic.</p><p>Reborn’s not about to waste his time <em>explaining</em>.</p><p>He wonders if it would count as losing the game if he kills Zeref the exact same way next time too, just so he can properly appreciate the screaming.</p><p>Probably.</p><p>
  <em>Pity.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was going to try and justify how I came up with this ship.</p><p>And then I realized I couldn’t even justify it to myself.</p><p>But the idea for it, that was all Lambo’s fault! Honest!</p><p>(I was writing the fic-summary for Paint the Dawn and was trying to figure out what sort of role Lambo would play, and my mind went on tangent like, “I don’t want to write a toddler, so I’ll age Lambo up – oh wait, Reborn’s curse makes him a toddler, do I want to keep that – WAIT! Reborn. Curse. Zeref. Curse. SHIP!!!!!” And then I was like, no wait that’s an awful idea and I don’t want cursed Reborn anyway, so I just moved on. But then I got to Mukuro’s segment/role in the fic, and my brain was like, “Mukuro would totally appreciate Zeref’s work.” And then I was like, “Cultist!Mukuro?” and of course not, Mukuro would never worship ANYONE, that’s not his style.)</p><p>(Queue the Reborn x Zeref ship punching me in the face again.)</p><p>So yeah. It was Lambo’s fault originally, and then Mukuro did as Mukuro does and acted as an enabler.</p><p>This isn’t even a crack ship, it’s just a hell ship. Can’t change my mind.</p><p>To the small pattering of people who have kudos’d, favorited, or reviewed, I love you all. I’m glad to know that despite the fact that this is probably the only fic with this ship, there are still others out there who appreciate my brain’s moment of madness.</p><p>You’re the best. Enjoy part two? An unexpected part three will be incoming! Because Mavis took over.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The hunger doesn’t go away.</p><p>Zeref had forgotten how <em>annoying</em> it could be, that ache in his stomach that he hasn’t felt for so many centuries he’d all but forgotten the sensation. He tries not to eat, just to see if he’ll starve, to no success. He doesn’t get weaker, doesn’t lose strength or focus, though his stomach begins to ache more fiercely the longer he ignores it.</p><p>He’s not quite sure how he’s supposed to interpret this, but…</p><p>He knows it’s different - a change, something new, the curse mutating to accommodate… something. At this point, he doesn’t think he could even tolerate going back to Tenrou, not as long as Reborn’s still alive.</p><p>Not while there’s a real <em>chance</em>.</p><p>Hope tries to sprout again, and he can’t even bring himself to try and stamp it out.</p><p>Zeref does get the feeling that he should tell Mavis though, even if he’s not sure what he’s supposed to say.</p><p>If he explained everything she’d probably call him a socially-inept idiot and know exactly what it is he’s supposed to tell her, so maybe he should…?</p><p><em>After next time</em>, he thinks.</p><p>
  <em>Reborn’s due any day now, and I’d hate to miss him.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Reborn has <em>had it</em> with <em>everyone</em>. It’s been a <em>month</em>, and he hasn’t had a moment’s peace and if he gets <em>one more client</em> trying to take away his time for hunting Zeref he’s going to break code and start killing <em>them</em>.</p><p>And for once it seems like the Black Wizard is <em>moving</em>, because Reborn’s found traces of the man in three separate clearings, but no sign of Zeref himself.</p><p>His food is going to spoil before he catches up to the Wizard at this rate, and Reborn glares at the faintly-glowing remnants of his tracking spell.</p><p>
  <em>He’d better have a good explanation for this.</em>
</p><p>Leon chirps a warning, and Reborn quickly braces the lizard with one hand as he throws himself backwards, prepping a spell with the other-</p><p>His tracking spell surges from a faint glow to a blinding light and Reborn groans and collapses to sit against the tree as Zeref teleports into the clearing, a veritable mountain of books hovering behind him.</p><p>“Ah. I’d wondered when you’d show up.” Zeref says idly, throwing up wards with one hand as he gently guides the books down with the other.</p><p>Reborn is <em>not</em> jealous.</p><p><em>Anyone</em> could be competent at multi-thread spellcasting after four hundred years.</p><p>
  <em>He’d like to be good at it <strong>now</strong>, thank you.</em>
</p><p>“Is there a trick to that,” Reborn asks casually, gesturing at the magic, “or is it just practice?”</p><p>Zeref snorts. “There’s a trick to everything. Though practice never hurts.”</p><p>Reborn raises an eyebrow as Zeref settles down next to his books, legs crossed. “Are you going to make me ask?”</p><p>The Black Wizard grins, boyishly wide. “I’m afraid my family’s actually old magic - I’ve got a bit of a bloodline advantage to thread-casting over most people. But if you’re interested in learning, the easiest way is to start with artifacts. When I was first learning I used a spell-stone that changed colors depending on how much magic you poured in, and a ribbon that tied itself into different knots by the same. Get used to channeling magic through both at the same time, and eventually use more and more complex artifacts until you don’t need them at all because you’re used to splitting your power toward different purposes - really once you’ve got the power part down, it’s just a matter of concentration and mental ability. You’d likely be good at it.”</p><p>There aren’t a lot of families still alive that hearken back to Old Magic, so Reborn makes a note of it - they were wiped out about the same time as Ethelos, and Reborn suddenly wonders if there’s a <em>connection</em> there.</p><p>And what Zeref said before, about being resistant to certain kinds of magic… he scribbles down some ideas to look into, then turns his concentration back to the Wizard’s explanation.</p><p>“Would it work with a light pen and a charging lacrima?” he asks, because spell-stones are <em>expensive</em>, and he’s never heard of a ribbon like that in his life.</p><p>Zeref nods, pulling a blank notebook from behind him and scribbling something down. “It should, though the practice only works with a continuous output, so you’d have to write in Skarian or another language that doesn’t allow for breaks to get any real use out of it.”</p><p>Reborn nods. “That won’t be a problem. But before we get into all of this, should I expect your constant moving to be a regular occurrence from now on?”</p><p>Zeref sighs. “Hopefully not. It seems my… cultists… have been more determined of late to find me, and it took a couple attempts to create a ward that would hide my presence from their tracking spells without affecting your own.”</p><p>Reborn sits up straighter. “You don’t have my blood.”</p><p>Zeref blinks a couple times, visibly confused. “No? Of course not. I tailored the ward to your magical signature, which is admittedly easier with blood or living tissue, but hardly <em>requires</em> them.”</p><p>“Not according to <em>every magical theorist ever</em>,” Reborn can’t help but retort, because if it were possible to bind wards to specific people without using a part of their body as an anchor, that…</p><p>That could change <em>everything</em>.</p><p>The sheer <em>implications</em> of that, of how it could be used and abused, are so staggering that Reborn needs a moment to just.</p><p>Process it.</p><p>Zeref didn’t even <em>need</em> him to be present in order to tailor a ward <em>specifically to his magic</em>, and Reborn’s pretty sure this is what terror feels like.</p><p>Because if <em>anyone else</em> knew how to do that, they could…</p><p>They could do anything.</p><p>“Are you <em>sure</em> you’re not a god?” he can’t help but ask, only half-joking as his mind plays out every worst-case scenario some criminal could do against him with that sort of power.</p><p>It’s been over a year, and Zeref’s abilities <em>still</em> manage to dwarf all his expectations.</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>Reborn snaps his gaze to the Wizard, Zeref’s voice cold and closed-off in a way it’s never been, even in their very first meeting, and the eyes he meet glow faintly red beneath the Wizard’s hair.</p><p>Reborn should probably apologize for what was clearly a statement gone too far, but he’s never been much for ‘sorry’, and he’s not about to change that now. So he leans laconically against the tree, smirking, and pulls up the most sycophantic voice he can muster.</p><p>“Well then you’d best prove it by teaching me how to do that, or I’ll just have to start building some shrines. Do you prefer your alters made out of precious metals, or gemstones?”</p><p>Zeref’s dangerous look melts away into one of pure teenage <em>disgust</em>. “Absolutely <em>not</em>. That’s so- so- <em>no</em>. I will never speak to you again if you do that.” He sighs then, glancing behind himself. “I suppose these books will have to wait though, if I’m to dispel your ridiculous notions. Alright. The most important rule to signature warding is that the ward must be at least half free-cast. Do you have much experience with that?”</p><p>Reborn flips to a blank section of his notebook as he nods. “Only with basic wards that could use anchors small enough to carry in my pockets though.”</p><p>“Good enough to teach with. Have anything on you that will work as an anchor?”</p><p>“Always.” Any smart assassin does, after all.</p><p>Zeref just hums in thought. “Then, craft a basic C-rank absorption ward, and we’ll go from there.”</p><p>Reborn grabs one of his anchor stones and delicately carves the first runes into it, Zeref watching silently.</p><hr/><p>Zeref has no idea what about signature-warding is so ridiculous as to warrant accusations of <em>godhood</em> from an otherwise reasonable man, but he’ll dispel those notions rather quickly. Reborn’s never been anything short of a quick study, and he doubts that will change anytime soon.</p><p>His skill with free-casting is actually a bit better than Zeref expected, because he knows that few mages bother to learn how - wards are wards because you <em>aren’t</em> supposed to free-cast after all, and most people think you may as well make a barrier if you’re going to do it like that since they cost less magic. Zeref has long since moved past any concerns about how much power something takes, and clearly Reborn didn’t hold much stock by it either with how efficient his ward is.</p><p>But better than expected or not, it’s still not good <em>enough</em>, so he spends three days coaching Reborn through the complexities of hybrid wards, and while he’d much rather be debating complex spell theory instead of teaching the basics to someone, Zeref can’t deny a certain degree of enjoyment. Reborn learns <em>quickly</em>, and at one point derails their lesson entirely as he drags Zeref into a debate of the different advantages to various hybrid casting methods and the complications of layering them.</p><p>Six hours pass by in a rush, before the conversation turns back around to the lesson and Zeref thinks that if Reborn had four hundred years of experience, the man would be utterly unstoppable.</p><p>A part of him almost longs for the challenge, and he can’t help but wonder how Reborn would hold up in a straight fight if the curse weren’t in play.</p><p>He thinks…</p><p>Maybe it would be fun to find out?</p><hr/><p>
  <em>This is ridiculous.</em>
</p><p>Reborn glares at his anchor-stone, carving knife twirling between his fingers. He’s good at sensing magic, <em>great</em> at tracking signatures, they’re practically the foundations of assassination, but he has absolutely <em>no idea</em> what Zeref means when he says <em>“carve a pathway in the shape of my magic,”</em>.</p><p>Magical signatures don’t have <em>shapes</em>, they have <em>presence</em>, and he can’t <em>carve a presence</em>. And he has no idea how he’s supposed to carve the <em>“spirit of the anchor, beyond its physical form”</em> when anchor stones don’t <em>have</em> a spirit until <em>after</em> you carve them!</p><p>The knife spins faster between his fingers as he glares down at the stone. </p><p>
  <em>There’s a trick to everything, so what’s the trick to this?</em>
</p><p>He contemplates the stone for a few minutes, turning it over in one hand as he pokes the tip of his knife into it with the other.</p><p>A gentle breeze fluttering the pages of his notebook signify Zeref’s return, and he glances up. The Wizard steps forward, approaching Reborn with nearly hesitant footsteps before he turns back around to settle at their usual distance, expression conflicted.</p><p>Reborn tries not to pout, and decides to distract himself with questions.</p><p>“What is my magic shaped like?”</p><p>Zeref freezes mid-crouch, stones laid out in a row in front of him. He hesitates a moment before sitting down entirely, clearly considering the question.</p><p>“Fire and soul and healing, I guess. It’s-” he makes a gesture with his hands, and <em>Reborn’s golden fire dances through his fingers</em>.</p><p>Reborn’s <em>natural</em> magic. Conjured easy as breathing.</p><p>Zeref stares at him expectantly, as though that was somehow an <em>explanation</em>.</p><p>Reborn doesn’t even know what Zeref’s natural magic <em>is</em>, how is he supposed to-!</p><p>
  <em>Wait.</em>
</p><p>“Are you saying,” he starts slowly, mind rushing through the implications and trying to fit them to words, “that it’s possible to sense peoples’ magic in such detail as to perceive their <em>natural manifestation</em>?”</p><p>Zeref tilts his head, visibly confused. “Yes? Of course it is. You can’t exactly signature-bind without it.”</p><p>
  <em>Everyone with magic is born to a unique specialization. A lot of it has been converted into something teachable, that anyone can use, but some specializations are so complex or rare that no one can use them if they aren’t born to it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So how…?</em>
</p><p>“Is it really so easy for you to just mimic peoples’ power?” Reborn asks lightly, though his magic settles into a calm flow.</p><p>Zeref laughs. “No. Some things are easier than others, it took me nearly two months to manage even the slightest spark of your fire. Really it’s only because your magic <em>is</em> a sort of fire that I could manage it - my family has an affinity for the element, but even then… I wouldn’t ever try to use it in a fight. It takes too much effort to conjure. I just… don’t know how else to explain?” He shrugs, holding out his hands. A moment later, Reborn’s flame starts to flicker at his fingertips, but now that Reborn studies it, he can see what the Wizard means.</p><p>It’s not steady, and while Zeref makes it <em>look</em> easy, if he’s paying attention Reborn can see the focus it takes. There’s a glint to the Wizard’s eyes, one of concentration as the fire pulses in his cupped hands. And now that the shock has passed, Reborn can <em>feel</em> the difference.</p><p>The fire in Zeref’s hands feels like <em>nothing</em>, like it doesn’t even exist, and Reborn realizes that’s because it <em>is</em>, for all intents and purposes, his own magic in Zeref’s hands.</p><p>
  <em>He’s modifying his own magical signature to mimic my magic down to the <strong>core</strong>.</em>
</p><p>And then Reborn <em>understands</em>.</p><p>“Magic has a shape while you’re casting it. Two people can cast the same spell but shape it entirely different ways, because that <em>shaping</em> is instinctive and unique to the spellcaster. So the first step to copying someone’s signature is copying their <em>shape</em>.”</p><p>“That’s right,” Zeref says distractedly, Reborn’s flames still dancing across his fingers.</p><p>“This would be easier if I’d ever seen your natural magic, then.” Reborn says after a moment, and within the span of a heartbeat the flame in Zeref’s hands changes.</p><p>It gets thicker, <em>heavier</em> somehow, and the color goes from familiar gold to a dark purple that borders on black.</p><p>It feels like Zeref. Like his body just… extended its own limbs, and now his hands are bigger than normal.</p><p>Any skilled sensor can tell the difference between a spell and a person with magic, and Reborn only realizes now, staring at Zeref’s magic in its most natural form, that the Black Wizard <em>has no difference</em>.</p><p>Every other spell the man’s cast, there've been differences, but Zeref’s raw magic feels no different outside his body than it does inside, and that’s.</p><p>That’s unheard of.</p><p>Reborn wonders if it’s a trait of Old Magic, or a result of Zeref’s immortality.</p><p>“Carving just the shape won’t be enough, right?” he asks as he focuses on the feel of Zeref’s fire, trying to memorize its pattern.</p><p>“Aa. It’s a bit more complicated than just that, but being able to carve the shape is a necessary first-step. Unless you’re completely free-casting a ward, the magic will not work without it.”</p><p>Reborn nods, scooping his rock back up. If it’s possible to sense magic so clearly that Zeref can tell someone’s natural specialization from that alone, then perhaps the rock <em>does</em> have spirit.</p><p>He just needs to find it.</p><hr/><p>
  <em>[Where have you been?]</em>
</p><p>Mavis doesn’t talk to him in words, per se. He can’t hear her, after all. But they’ve long since worked around that, and while it takes some degree of focus on both their parts, he’s never had trouble understanding her when she wanted him to.</p><p>He tries to pretend he doesn’t miss the sound of her voice.</p><p>“Dying, mostly.” he says after he catches his breath. The heavy wards protecting Tenrou island make teleporting in and out hard, even for him - he’s fairly certain that if Mavis wanted to force him to stay, or even go, he wouldn’t be able to stop her.</p><p>Faeries’ magic controls the island, and he’s only a guest, no matter how invited.</p><p>
  <em>No matter how much he doesn’t deserve the honor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[You don’t seem to have had much luck. It’s okay to be honest! You were just sulking because I like Maka-chan more than you.]</em>
</p><p>“You do <em>not</em>.” Zeref rebuts, stomping up the beach. “And I wasn’t sulking!”</p><p>
  <em>[I really do. <strong>Makarov</strong> doesn’t murder me and then run away and leave me talking to myself because he’s an idiot.]</em>
</p><p>“Makarov doesn’t even know you’re <em>here</em> Mavis that’s hardly a fair judgement.”</p><p>
  <em>[You’re not fair!]</em>
</p><p>“Childish.” he scoffs, just because he knows she hates it.</p><p>Mavis doesn’t even try to say anything, and he turns to face what he thinks is her general direction, wondering, when he hears a loud <em>crack!</em> And a massive tree limb crashes into the back of his head, driving him to the ground.</p><p>“Mavis!” he squawks as he tries to push himself up. The earth gives out underneath his hands and sends him tumbling back down the hill, tree-branch and all.</p><p>A sensation of giddy happiness sweeps over him a moment later, the closest Mavis can come to projecting laughter at him.</p><p>He glares at nothing.</p><p>“I don’t think you can call <em>me</em> unfair when I can’t even <em>fight back</em>. This is bullying, Mavis.”</p><p>
  <em>[Well it’s not <strong>my</strong> fault I’m stuck like this, now is it? All’s fair in love and war!]</em>
</p><p>Zeref groans at her. “Well I’m not walking back up that hill. So now we’ll just have to chat down here.”</p><p>
  <em>[Oh? And what are we talking about? How sorry you are for leaving me all alone, bored out of my mind, for over a year? Because I haven’t heard an apology from you yet Zer.]</em>
</p><p>“You weren’t alone the <em>entire</em> time. Fairy Tail must have come back for their S-class exam in the past month, right?”</p><p>
  <em>[That didn’t sound like an apology.]</em>
</p><p>Tree branches creak ominously overhead, and Zeref winces.</p><p>“Ahaha, I really meant to come back! Promise! But then stuff happened and I got distracted and- I sorta felt like I should tell you about it though I don’t know why… I guess maybe I did feel bad for leaving you alone? I’m not sure, I just knew I should come back and talk to you…” he rubs at his head, smiling sheepishly, and the tree branches still.</p><p>He doesn’t <em>quite</em> sigh in relief. Tenrou is Mavis’ domain, more than anywhere else, and if she wanted to make the island swallow him she could probably manage it.</p><p>Sometimes he’s still amazed at how far that compassionate child has come, her magic grown stronger and wilder than he ever could have imagined when he first started to teach her and her friends.</p><p>She’s so beautiful, her magic so magnificent, even when she’s trapped in her own sort of limbo.</p><p>Sometimes, he wishes he’d never met her, because the guilt from what he did to her is enough to <em>drown</em> in.</p><p>It’s so easy to remember, sitting in the heart of her power, why he rarely talked to her. Listened always, but…</p><p>The guilt is like a living thing, shoved into unignorable clarity with every sign of her presence, and he sometimes thinks an eternity of physical torture would hurt less than having to face it every second of every day in her presence.</p><p>It’s no less than he deserves, but…</p><p>
  <em>[So? Must have been something reaaaaaaally impressive to distract you. Tell me everything! Maka-chan and the guild haven’t actually come yet this year, and I’m so boooooored!]</em>
</p><p>“I, uh… don’t plan on staying. So maybe I could… check on them? From a distance. And let you know?”</p><p>
  <em>[You’re leaving again? Hmm… I <strong>suppose</strong> if you brought me back one of those cute action figures the guild has started selling, I could forgive you! I want a Maka-chan! And a Yuri-chan and a Precht and a Warrod too! And you’d better pay for them! No stealing from my guild!]</em>
</p><p>“Wha- I don’t have any money!”</p><p>
  <em>[No stealing!]</em>
</p><p>“I- right! Of course! I’ll… see if Reborn is willing to buy them I guess…” it sounds weird even as he says it, but… he’s pretty sure the assassin will.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>Can’t hurt to ask anyway.</p><p>
  <em>[Reborn? Have you made a <strong>friend</strong>?]</em>
</p><p>Something about the way Mavis says ‘friend’ sends a shiver down Zeref’s spine.</p><p>“I… don’t know? You know I’m bad with people. I sorta figured if I told you everything that happened, you’d probably understand it all better than I do. You’ve always been smarter than me.”</p><p>
  <em>[I am not. You’re just people-dumb. And socially dumb. And human-dumb. And emotionally-dumb-]</em>
</p><p>“Maaaavis!”</p><p>
  <em>[It’s true! But you’re really a genius everywhere else. Don’t sell yourself short!]</em>
</p><p>“Exactly how many other categories are left once we cross out the dumb ones?”</p><p>
  <em>[Enough. Now stop arguing and tell me what happened!]</em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <em>[You’re cheating on me.]</em>
</p><p>“WHAT?!”</p><p>
  <em>[You totally are. You’ve fallen for- for some two-bit hack murderer just because he made you hungry! I can’t believe this!]</em>
</p><p>“I haven’t! Wh-what even makes you <em>say</em> that?!”</p><p>Mavis’ ability to project a sensation of <em>you’re an idiot</em> without words is peerless. Zeref quails under her disproving aura.</p><p>
  <em>[You’re so dumb. I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out yet.]</em>
</p><p>“What? I know something’s changing!”</p><p>
  <em>[Like I said. So dumb. Haven’t you realized? He makes you want to live.]</em>
</p><p>Ice crawls through his veins, and Zeref couldn’t make himself move even if Natsu suddenly appeared two feet away from him.</p><p>That can’t be true.</p><p>“Y-you wanted to live though!” he says, a rejection of her theory.</p><p>
  <em>[I did. When you came for me. I wished I could die, when Maka-chan’s mother died, when it was my fault, but after that… you came for me. And. I thought. Maybe I could still love to live, as long as I still had people who cared about me. People who I cared about in return. So obviously you killed me. Because I didn’t want to die.]</em>
</p><p>“N-no…”</p><p>
  <em>[And now, Reborn’s doing for you what you did for me. He makes you want to live. So the curse is breaking.]</em>
</p><p>“But I did want to live! Before, when I’d first gotten cursed, I still had things to live for! I still wanted to be alive! But even then I couldn’t-!”</p><p>
  <em>[Divine magic is very different from human magic. And so are their curses. A god’s curse is more powerful than a human’s, but it has special laws that must be followed-]</em>
</p><p>“A god can only control their curse for seven years, and after that it becomes unbound, tied wholly to mortal spirit-”</p><p>Zeref chokes on the words, flinching into himself.</p><p>“I- It can’t be that easy! After everything! I can’t just- That’s not-!”</p><p>
  <em>[Of course it’s not fair. But it’s not easy either. Because Reborn wants to kill you, right? And one of these days, he’s going to succeed. And it will be because, that day, whenever it comes, will be the day you <strong>do not want to die</strong>. And I think that will hurt more than anything else. Don’t you agree, Zeref?]</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Me, writing two chapters of this hell-ship in a day, watching as the plot spirals wildly out of my control:</p><p>:O</p><p>You guys Skull was never supposed to exist in this fic.</p><p>And Mavis was never supposed to be present beyond that one scene at the very beginning of chapter one.</p><p>And this thing was supposed to be two chapters.</p><p>I don’t know what’s happening anymore.</p><p>Expect at least two more chapters after this one.</p><p>Hopefully not more though I make no promises.</p><p>I mean I guess more isn’t a bad thing for you guys, but still. I do not feel capable of writing 100,000 words of Reborn/Zeref.</p><p>Okay that’s a lie I totally could because I’m enjoying this ship more and more with every word I write but if I wrote that many words of it it’d start to suck so this thing’s gotta end before it gets awful.</p><p>Anyway, for those of you who are humoring this hell-ship of mine, hope you enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zeref runs.</p><p>Mavis doesn’t try to stop him, Tenroujima’s wards practically peeling themselves apart to facilitate his escape.</p><p>He can’t-</p><p><em>She’s wrong!</em> He screams to himself, but he knows it’s a lie even as he thinks it.</p><p>He doesn’t know where he is.</p><p>He thinks he might like to never know where he is again.</p><p>If he doesn’t know where he is, then Reborn can’t find him.</p><p>Because-</p><p>His hands shake as he stares at them, and Zeref wonders how long he’s been in denial.</p><p>Because his curse hasn’t killed anything since that day Reborn touched him in a crowded city, and escaped alive.</p><p>Zeref remembers looking over the bridge, expecting a corpse, only to find the assassin blowing raspberries up at him as he back-floated down the river.</p><p>It was so impossible. Reborn had <em>no</em> headstart, <em>no</em> chance, because Zeref’s curse lashed out the moment the assassin touched him, he’d already been struggling to keep himself in check long enough to steal some books, there’d been no <em>time</em>-</p><p>And he still survived.</p><p>So many other people died, but-</p><p>Reborn didn’t.</p><p>And Zeref doesn’t remember the curse activating again after that.</p><p><em>He makes you want to live,</em> Mavis said, and Zeref wonders if maybe he should have left after that first time.</p><p>“Why didn’t <em>you</em> make me want to live?” he asks the wind, curling his hands into fists to stop the trembling.</p><p>
  <em>[Because I was pure, and you loved me, but you also felt like you were tainting me every time we touched. Even before I died, you could never forgive yourself for that. But Reborn’s darker than you’ve ever been. You couldn’t taint him if you wanted to, so you can be freer with him than you ever were with me.]</em>
</p><p>He wonders if the words are Mavis’, carried by the wind, or his own thoughts in her voice.</p><p>He can’t tell the difference.</p><p>He isn’t sure if he wants to.</p><p><em>I love you</em>, he wants to say. The words don’t come.</p><p>He’s never deserved to say them, not to her, and now less than ever.</p><p><em>[I know.]</em> </p><p>It feels like condemnation.</p><p>
  <em>I don’t think I love him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>[Not yet. But you could, if you let yourself.]</em>
</p><p>Zeref doesn’t know if the voice is his or Mavis’ own stretching across the world.</p><p>But whichever it is, the words fill him with a terror he hasn’t felt since the day he found himself staring up at Ankhseram over his brother’s corpse, words like a brand closing a vice-grip on his soul and leaving him cursed for the rest of eternity.</p><p>He thinks love might be more terrifying than any god, and he just never noticed before because Mavis was so good at making him forget.</p><p>Reborn makes him <em>think</em>.</p><p>He doesn’t know which is worse.</p><hr/><p>Zeref’s pretty sure his random bouts of teleportation have landed him on the continent. The earth’s magic feels different, further from the sea, though he hasn’t got close enough to any roads to even get an idea of where he is.</p><p>He wants Reborn to find him.</p><p>He never wants to see Reborn again.</p><p>He thinks one of those statements is a lie, but he refuses to figure out which one it is.</p><p>
  <em>He already knows the answer.</em>
</p><p>It’s been over eight months.</p><p>Right?</p><p>He loses track of time easily, teleporting so often the hours become hard to track, the sun an inconsistent clock, but it feels like it could have been that long.</p><p>He thinks Mavis must be furious, because he hasn’t even bought those figurines like he promised, but-</p><p>He’s-</p><p><em>Afraid</em>.</p><p>Something like understanding washes over him, but Mavis can’t communicate with him off her island.</p><p>So he’s just.</p><p>Hallucinating.</p><p>Something like an apology hangs in the air, and he wants to tell Mavis that she has nothing to be sorry for-</p><p>But she’s not there. She <em>isn’t</em>, and he’s just imagining things, because-</p><p>Because.</p><hr/><p>“Come one, come all! To Cirque Bastet’s finest showing! See the skin-changer Miriam as she takes any form your heart desires! No illusions here! The twins of enchantment, Tyros and Tyras, who will bedazzle you with their synchronized magic! And of course, the star of our show, the immortal acrobat Skull DeMort himself! He’ll do any trick you can name and a few I’m sure you can’t, so be sure to stop by!”</p><p>Zeref doesn’t mean to stop.</p><p>He didn’t mean to appear practically on top of a <em>circus</em> either, though perhaps that’s his own fault for teleporting blind, just picking random directions and letting magic toss him out wherever it wants down that line.</p><p>He should finish forming his spell, let magic whisk him away somewhere else, he’s too close to people, he doesn’t want to kill them.</p><p>Doesn’t want to know what it might mean if he somehow <em>doesn’t</em> kill them.</p><p>The words <em>immortal acrobat</em> ring in his ears, though, and it’s like his magic is frozen in his chest.</p><p>He knows people like that exist, people who pursue immortality out of their own desires instead of having it forced upon them.</p><p>He thinks there used to be a guild once that only accepted other immortals as members, though he couldn’t say what happened to it.</p><p>He’s never talked to one before.</p><p>There’s a darkness in him, and sometimes he thought that if he saw someone who’d chosen to become immortal, <em>enjoyed</em> being immortal, he might just-</p><p>Break them.</p><p>Make them hate it as much as he does and- he should walk away.</p><p><em>Right now</em>.</p><p>But his magic curls about him like a cloak, and the Ringmaster doesn’t even notice as he grabs a pamphlet, slipping past the man and into the tent.</p><p>It’s so crowded.</p><p>Zeref should have expected that, he remembers festival days with his family, before, remembers how cramped it was and his mother telling him,</p><p>“Don’t let go of Tsu-chan’s hand, alright? He’s so little, he might get stepped on if you let go!”</p><p>He’s not sure if the crowd or the memories are more overwhelming.</p><p>He feels like, if he just focused a little more, he might actually remember his mother’s face.</p><p>Someone barges past him, and he flinches away from the touch, stumbling into someone else and-</p><p>It’s too much.</p><p>There’s too many people, it’s too loud, they’re still <em>alive</em> and it’s too <em>loud</em> and it’s <em>crowded</em> and they keep <em>touching him-!</em></p><p>Someone grabs the end of his wrap, tugging gently, until he stumbles into a quiet alcove he’s pretty sure shouldn’t actually <em>be there</em>.</p><p>“This is a staff-only area, it’s warded by some pretty fancy magic. You looked like you needed a minute to calm down, just don’t tell anyone I brought you back here! I’ll get in trouble again!”</p><p>The person’s voice trails into a whine at the end, and Zeref huffs on a laugh as he tries to calm down.</p><p><em>They should all be dead.</em> </p><p>There’s a babbling purple… <em>thing</em> in front of him, speaking nonsense in a very pathetic attempt to calm him down that should be dead <em>ten times over</em> and they’re <em>not</em>.</p><p>It feels like everything he never wanted to have confirmed, because-</p><p>He still wants to die.</p><p>Right?</p><p>He <em>feels</em> like he wouldn’t mind dying.</p><p>But.</p><p>There’s a vaguely human-shaped monstrosity of purple in front of him, patting him on the head even as tentacles wave around in panic behind them and-</p><p>They aren’t dying.</p><p>“Who are you?” Zeref asks, when he realizes the tentacle person isn’t going to calm down until he says something.</p><p>He wonders if he’s dreaming, even though he hasn’t had anything but nightmares in longer than he can remember.</p><p>It would be… easier to accept.</p><p>Anything would be easier, really.</p><p>The tentacle person sputters in outrage.</p><p>“Who am-? What do you mean?! I am the great Skull DeMort! Immortal acrobat and stuntman extraordinaire! Known across all of Alakitasia! To come to this circus without even knowing of me-!” the purple humanoid, Skull, flaps their arms exaggeratedly, tentacles flailing behind them.</p><p>Zeref tilts his head, studying the acrobat. “So I am on the continent? I’d wondered. What… exactly are you?”</p><p>“Huh?” Skull freezes, eyes wide as he stares at Zeref. “What do you mean? I’m human of course!”</p><p>“You have tentacles.”</p><p>Skull looks behind himself, before leaping in exaggerated shock. “Oodako! I’ve told you to stop doing that! Save it for the show!” he scrambles for a moment, yelping, before he spins back around, arms full of the weirdest octopus Zeref’s ever seen.</p><p>He’s pretty sure the creature is pouting, tentacles crossed like arms over its face even as they shrink down into something smaller.</p><p>Skull holds the creature out like an offering. “This is Oodako, my familiar! You can pet him if you want. But I’ll warn you! He likes to stick to peoples’ faces!”</p><p>Zeref shakes his head, and takes a step back for good measure.</p><p>Touching anything right now is…</p><p>He takes a deep breath and tries not to think too much.</p><p>If he tells himself this is all a dream, then maybe it won’t end in catastrophe.</p><p>“So are you feeling better?” Skull peeks his head around the body of his octopus, grinning. “Cause lemme tell ya, you looked fit to kill everyone if you didn’t get some space. I’m guessing you don’t go out much?”</p><p>Zeref doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to something like that.</p><p>So he ignores it.</p><p>“Are you really immortal?”</p><p>Maybe something of his feelings leaks through his voice, or maybe it’s something else, but Skull calms down in a way that makes Zeref think he’s being serious.</p><p>“Pretty much.” he says, shrugging casually. His grip on his familiar tightens though.</p><p>“Can I ask why?”</p><p>Skull gives him a searching look. “You don’t already know?”</p><p>“Would I ask if I did?” Zeref responds, crossing his arms.</p><p>Something-</p><p>Something tells him he probably doesn’t want to know the answer.</p><p>“I dunno. I mean I’ve got no clue why the Black Wizard would have a panic attack in the middle of a circus. How should I know why he’d ask me a question? You really don’t know?”</p><p>“No?” Zeref asks, because he learned the hard way that his instincts are almost always right, even if he never listened to them in the past.</p><p>He doesn’t want to know the answer. He waits for one anyway.</p><p>Skull stares searchingly at him for another minute, and Zeref’s pretty sure he’s hugging his familiar more than holding it.</p><p>His feeling gets worse, and he nearly turns to leave when Skull finally answers.</p><p>“I used to live in Ishgar. Bosco, specifically. You know how the slave trade’s huge there, right?”</p><p>Zeref knows the country’s a mess politically, and an even bigger mess in the criminal underground, though he’d never spent enough time there to learn much more.</p><p>He nods anyway.</p><p>“Right. Right.” Skull bobs his head, something nervous in his actions. “Well anyway, I was born there. And your cultists are really big on slaves right? Use em for human sacrifices, manual labor, stuff like that. And. Sometimes they use ‘em for experiments? They’re pretty obsessed with your magic. Kinda hard not to recognize it when you’re half a second from unleashing it in a crowded tent, right? But- anyway- I mean, I haven’t been able to die since I was fourteen. I haven’t tried too hard, honestly, cause I’m still aging so I figure I’ll worry about it if I stop getting older. But nothing else has killed me. And-” he shrugs, “If I’m gonna be stuck like this I might as well get rich off it. I ran to the continent as soon as I got away - there are cultists out here too, of course, but you’ve been mostly active in Ishgar in the past so it’s where most of the more dangerous groups stay. I’m safer out here. Or. I mean. I was? You’re here, so I guess not that safe…”</p><p>Zeref knew the people who worshipped him were mad. But he hadn’t realized-</p><p>No.</p><p>It wasn’t that he never realized.</p><p>It was just that he never bothered to look.</p><p>They were mad, and he didn’t like them, so he ignored them.</p><p>Skull DeMort stands in front of him like someone who’s run all his life but knew he couldn’t run forever.</p><p>
  <em>He expects me to-</em>
</p><p>Zeref runs.</p><p>Skull yelps, but as long as he doesn’t follow-</p><p>He just-</p><hr/><p>“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”</p><p>Zeref spins towards Reborn’s voice, magic surging.</p><p>He doesn’t even lay eyes on the assassin before a wave of ice engulfs him and-</p><p>Starts eating his flesh?</p><p>He spends a second to study it, and that was perhaps one second too many. The ice seals itself around him, not even the slightest gap left for air, and even his magic slowly stops responding to him.</p><p>He could fight, probably. Break out. He doesn’t like the memories ice brings with it.</p><p>
  <em>My fault my fault my fault-!</em>
</p><p>The chance to escape slips through his fingers, and Zeref thinks maybe it’s better that way.</p><p>He wonders if the nightmare of that timeless prison is better or worse than the look on Skull DeMort’s face when he expected Zeref to-</p><hr/><p>It had already been past nightfall when Zeref stumbled blindly into his trap. Reborn hadn’t even finished preparing it, honestly expected the Black Wizard to break out since all his safe-guards weren’t in place, but he didn’t.</p><p>Didn’t even <em>try</em>, which might be normal for their game but-</p><p>Something feels off, tonight.</p><p>Zeref looked <em>haunted</em>, and Reborn doesn’t think the man even noticed him before he spoke. Despite the fact that he was still carving runes on the ground, in plain sight.</p><p>He adds a few extra runes, then turns to Leon.</p><p>“Stay here, let me know if the ice starts cracking.” The lizard nods, wrapping his legs around the small tree branch he’s perching on.</p><p>Reborn turns to the direction Zeref had come through.</p><p>
  <em>Time to see what he was running from.</em>
</p><hr/><p>“-an’t just <em>kill</em> Zeref!”</p><p>“And I haven’t. Stop being stupid, Lackey.”</p><p>“<em>I’m not your lackey!</em> Why am I involved in this! And he looks <em>pretty dead to me</em>!” There’s a sound like a wet squelch, then, “Oodako! Stop antagonizing him!”</p><p>“Of course he’s not dead. See? He’s breathing now.”</p><p>“<em>Wha-</em> since when?!”</p><p>“Since <em>now</em>, Lackey. It’s normal. If you kill him hard enough he stays dead for a little while, but he’s always back by the next sunset. If your octopus touches me <em>one more time.</em>” There’s a clipped finality to Reborn’s words, and Skull gulps audibly.</p><p>“Sh-shouldn’t we… give him a blanket or something?”</p><p>Reborn sighs. “Sure, go ahead. He’ll probably kill you though.”</p><p>There’s a sound of rustling, then, “Uh. Do you- um. Happen to have a blanket?”</p><p>A whistle of wind, quickly followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground. Skull groans a moment later.</p><p>“Th-thanks.”</p><p>Zeref doesn’t even realize his clothes are gone until he feels Skull awkwardly try and tuck a blanket around him.</p><p>He should probably say something.</p><p>He thinks he might not care to.</p><p>Words slip out anyway.</p><p>“I shouldn’t have asked.”</p><p>Skull screams, tripping over himself and yanking the blanket back off as he falls to the ground. Zeref tries to sit up, but his arms don’t support his weight and he crashes back down.</p><p>He wishes he’d just died.</p><p>He tries to ignore the fact that that’s why he didn’t.</p><p>He thinks that if he’d run into Reborn before he spoke to Skull, that maybe this time he would have.</p><p>Zeref-</p><p>Can’t deal with this.</p><p>Not right now.</p><p>
  <em>Maybe not ever.</em>
</p><p>He may not be able to stand but-</p><p>His magic’s as strong as ever.</p><p>So he calls it up, teleports away.</p><p>He can make it up to Reborn later.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>He thinks Mavis was probably right.</p><p>There’s nothing easy about this at all.</p><hr/><p>“What did he mean?”</p><p>“Wha-?!”</p><p>Skull casts panicked glances between Reborn and the spot of earth Zeref was lying on a moment ago.</p><p>Reborn stomps on the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He’s only had this so-called ‘immortal’ acrobat for two hours and he regrets <em>so much</em>.</p><p>“He said he ‘shouldn’t have asked’. Which means he asked you something, and you answered him. <em>What was he talking about</em>?”</p><p>Reborn offers the circus freak a smile that’s just a little too sharp at the edges.</p><p>The lackey acts like he doesn’t even <em>notice</em> and Reborn starts to wonder if ‘immortal’ is just a fancy way to say ‘no instincts for self-preservation’.</p><p>He crouches down, grabs Skull’s chin, and forces the acrobat to look at him. “It might be in your best interest to answer me, Lackey, or I’ll start testing the limits of <em>your</em> immortality too.”</p><p>Skull’s eyes drift toward the runes still etched in the dirt before jerking up to meet Reborn’s gaze.</p><p>“H-he came to the circus! I don’t know why but- I recognized his magic, it’s kinda distinctive, right? Ehehehe, but he was sorta lookin’ like he might kill everyone and I can’t run a show for <em>dead</em> people so I tried to get him somewhere private so he’d calm down and I didn’t really expect it to work but I had to try you know? S-so I did! But then he didn’t even know who I was! A-and when I told him he asked me why I’m immortal! And when I told him <em>that</em> he just ran away! And I did my show and then you showed up and kidnapped me! And I’m still not your lackey!”</p><p>“Your name is stupid.” Reborn retorts, trying to fit the new information into his profile.</p><p>Zeref disappeared for nearly ten months until Reborn tracked him here, and he’s still not sure why. And now, the interaction with the circus freak…</p><p>Something must have happened after that lesson on signature warding, but he’s not sure what.</p><p>Had Zeref been hunting the circus all this time?</p><p>
  <em>No. It wouldn’t have taken him this long, not when they have no protections or wards beyond the bare minimum.</em>
</p><p>Then, a chance encounter.</p><p>And something about the acrobat’s answer made him run?</p><p>He turns his attention back to the flailing stuntman, protesting something about his name. Reborn doesn’t care. “Why <em>are</em> you immortal then?”</p><p>“What, are you gonna freak out and run away too? It’s nothin’ special really, got kidnapped by some Avatar cultists as a kid and they made me like this. I really don’t know why he- Hey!”</p><p>A thousand thoughts collide in Reborn’s head, and everything makes <em>sense</em>.</p><p>All of Zeref’s reactions that first assassination. The unspoken rule of their game where Reborn was dead if he stopped taking his assassinations seriously.</p><p>The way Zeref so <em>deliberately</em> avoided certain magical subjects, and a system of immortality bound to the magic of a sunset instead of a sunrise.</p><p>The magic that always stops him from getting close enough to <em>really</em> examine Zeref’s core, but didn’t touch the Lackey at all.</p><p>The way Zeref responded to feeling pain, and hunger, and the fact that he never, <em>ever</em> fought back.</p><p>Reborn wonders how on <em>earth </em>it took him so long to realize-</p><p>He quickly finishes gathering his supplies, a quick spell erasing all traces of his ice-trap. Leon leaps onto his shoulder, projecting his own unique sense of <em>:worrycomfort:</em> in response to Reborn’s quick cleanup.</p><p>He runs a finger down the chameleon’s spine in reassurance, then steadies his grip as he calls up the magic for a speed enhancement.</p><p>And then another thought strikes him.</p><p>“Who could be powerful enough to keep the Black Wizard Zeref immortal against his will?”</p><p>
  <em>And are they going to come after me if I succeed in killing him?</em>
</p><p>“WHAT?!”</p><p>Reborn snaps his focus back to the acrobat.</p><p>It’ll make it harder to travel but… he needs information. And it might be safer to avoid his usual channels, until he knows more.</p><p>“You’re coming with me.”</p><p>“Wait! You can’t just- I don’t even know your <em>name</em>-!”</p><p>“Shut up Lackey.”</p><p>“I’M NOT YOUR LACKEY!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well here's a regrettably short chapter! Shorter than the previous version of it by almost 1000 words (the previous version was uploaded as its own separate fic, for anyone who really wants to check it out, Ocean of Blood Outtakes). It's likely the shortest chapter I've written for this fic as well, but I'm expecting next chapter to be the longest.</p><p>Hopefully it's not a hot mess! The characters were always supposed to end up here (minus Skull's everything, of course). The start of next chapter is honestly the scene I envisioned that made me start writing this fic in the first place.<br/>And inspired the title.</p><p>I'm sure once you get to the end of this one you can imagine how the next one will go.<br/>Hopefully, for being a transitional chapter, this doesn't suck! Transitions are always hard...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The Lackey’s a surprising goldmine of information. The cultists, believing Zeref to be a master of True Magic, and believing True Magic to be the magic of the planet itself, literally tied the Lackey’s spirit into the planet through some utterly ingenious spells the circus performer could only half-recall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was apparently an attempt to give the Lackey Zeref’s own power - a test case, before they used it on their own High Priest or some such.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reborn learns more about the inner workings of Bosco’s largest cult than he thought possible. It only makes him even more certain of his conclusions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But one thing that’s undeniable, is that despite Skull being a fire mage not unlike Zeref himself, he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>infinitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> weaker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Reborn comes back to that one deadly, dangerous question:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who could be powerful enough to bind </span>
  <em>
    <span>Zeref</span>
  </em>
  <span> into immortality?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Surely if it were something as simple as the Lackey’s, Zeref would free himself. Reborn already has a dozen ideas of which spells he could use to kill the Lackey with minimal effort. Just sever his connection to natural magic - painful for the victim but really not difficult for a professional like him to manage - and </span>
  <em>
    <span>done</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re going back to Ishgar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wha- no way! I live here, you can’t just kidnap me across the ocean!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reborn raises a sardonic eyebrow at the brightly-colored acrobat. “You can either tag along as you are, or I can ship you in a coffin. I know some </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> silencing spells, even if you wake up no one will hear you scream.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Lackey gulps, hugging his octopus to his chest, and Reborn rolls his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Lackey. You can run back to your silly little circus </span>
  <em>
    <span>after</span>
  </em>
  <span> I complete my hit.”</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The robes are-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Awkward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe embarrassing. Zeref tries to focus on that, the gaudy colors and the silly hoods, and not-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He cringes as the bell rings, and thinks that maybe his plan to understand more about the cults by </span>
  <em>
    <span>infiltrating</span>
  </em>
  <span> them might not have been very… intelligent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he focuses on how tacky the robes are, maybe he can dissociate enough to ignore the… mandatory worship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d like to just, grab someone, and shake them until they explain how on </span>
  <em>
    <span>earth</span>
  </em>
  <span> that pointless worship is supposed to do anything?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t even do the </span>
  <em>
    <span>sacrifices</span>
  </em>
  <span> right, so it’s not like he’d ever hear them if he weren’t actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>in the room</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Everyone</span>
  </em>
  <span> knows that if someone wants a sacrificial message to actually reach the gods, it has to be written in their own blood. Not the blood of animals, or victims - the loss of life merely provides the energy that allows the message to be carried. But if the priest doesn’t offer their own blood as tribute and proof of sincerity, it just doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span> anywhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zeref’s almost more offended by the blatant failure of magic than he is by the bleating sheep having its throat cut out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Such a pointless waste of life. Even if he were a god, his eyes wouldn’t be drawn to this sort of sacrifice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s still unsettling to be called up and expected to write his own prayers to himself in some animal’s blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sheep cries pathetically, and he tries not to focus too much on the magic, curls all his power tighter into himself, because otherwise he might understand more than he already does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he thought talking to animals was such a </span>
  <em>
    <span>cool</span>
  </em>
  <span> power, as a child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...he thought a lot of things were cool, as a child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks he regrets all of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scribbles down a wish for a kitten, something harmless enough that any malicious god actively paying attention to him can’t try and twist into something else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Last time it was a fish.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The time before it was a bunny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The time before that had been a chimera, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>somehow</span>
  </em>
  <span> one escaped from a research facility no one had known existed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cultists, of course, took that as a sign. And started experimenting on their animal sacrifices to try and make their own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zeref’s just surprised no rabbit grew fangs and tried to eat him, considering a few existed in the cult’s pens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>These wishes shouldn’t even be mystically </span>
  <em>
    <span>valid</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but he can only assume that having the ire of a god upon him means certain rules get… bent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’ll have to keep coming up with more wishes though, because while </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> cult might be a small, weak example of one that only bothers with the tamest sort of magic, they’re well-connected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with enough time he should be able to get the information he wants about the larger cults.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>About </span>
  <em>
    <span>Skull’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> cult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks he’s maybe ignored these issues for too long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coming back to his rooms that night after observing more of the cult’s chimera experiments to find a scrappy black kitten hissing on his blankets, claws soaked in blood, and some of his… compatriots… convulsing as though they’d been poisoned, he thinks he </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> should have picked a different way to find the information he wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some of the cultists look at him with awe in their eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zeref suppresses the urge to strangle the kitten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not the animal’s fault the gods hate him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...he has no idea what to do with a pet.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>There’s no rumor of Zeref </span>
  <em>
    <span>anywhere</span>
  </em>
  <span> when Skull returns to Ishgar. It’s surprising, because according to Reborn literally everyone knows he’s alive. But it’s like the entire world is just </span>
  <em>
    <span>denying</span>
  </em>
  <span> it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reborn calls him a stupid lackey, and insists that in the criminal underworld no one denies it, but Reborn also doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>take</span>
  </em>
  <span> him into any truly criminal place, often leaving him under Leon’s supervision, so it’s not like Skull </span>
  <em>
    <span>sees </span>
  </em>
  <span>it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does believe Reborn though, even if he thinks the man’s… not the sort of person he’d like to associate with, really, so the question becomes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why is the Magic Council trying to suppress this?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He asks Oodako, mostly, because the octopus is his dearest friend, and smarter than most fools are willing to believe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also very good at sign language, after Skull went through the effort of teaching his familiar. Apparently tentacles can make up for opposable thumbs, as long as there’s enough of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he’s expected some tentacle-flailing, maybe some brilliant ideas from his aquatic friend, and is completely blindsided by a human voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, Zeref’s legally classified as a natural disaster - they can’t do anything about him, so why bother trying?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skull squawks, stumbling backwards as he tries to look for the person who spoke-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Down here!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He jerks his gaze down, and meets the wizened eyes of the Fairy Tail guild master.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re shorter than before!” he blurts, before immediately clapping his hands over his mouth. Oodako scrambles to sit on his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh? Have we met? I can’t say I remember…” Makarov pauses, glancing up at Skull with shrewd eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t really want to admit that the last and only time he’d seen </span>
  <em>
    <span>any</span>
  </em>
  <span> Fairy Tail mage was when he was getting smuggled out of Bosco, and the ship stopped at Hargeon, and the guild master pretended not to see him when he begged the man to let him get smuggled out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hopes Makarov doesn’t remember either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There might be </span>
  <em>
    <span>questions</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leon’s judging stare bores into his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skull really doesn’t want any questions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he laughs, loud and long, and starts to blather about some fancy party and too much to drink, and mistaken identities.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s pretty sure Makarov doesn’t buy it, but at least the man doesn’t press.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, he hums consideringly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’re looking for the Black Wizard then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What-? No way! Why would you think that? Skull wants nothing to do with such things!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shorter man quirks an eyebrow, and Skull can practically </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> the disbelief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I heard the Black Sheep’s cult over in Minstrel has a… surprisingly favored acolyte. They’re based in Lyrem, I believe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skull stares at the guild master, but the man’s face betrays nothing. “Why… are you telling me this?” he asks, and the old wizard laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not? Seems like fun! Do tell me what you find!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Makarov hops off, spouting excuses about paperwork, and leaves Skull standing half-way to the next down, suddenly torn on what to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he ran to Makarov, the guild master would certainly get him away from Reborn. No matter how strong he is, Reborn wouldn’t be foolish enough to start something with the most prolific guild in Fiore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Strangely, though, he hesitates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thought he wanted to be away from Reborn’s controlling tendencies more than anything, but…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And heads back to their safe-house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Guess we’re going to Minstrel, Oodako.”</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Two more animals, a carpet that changes color according to his mood, and a </span>
  <em>
    <span>stable</span>
  </em>
  <span> full of </span>
  <em>
    <span>cows</span>
  </em>
  <span> later, Zeref wonders what sort of cosmic joke is being played on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s pretty sure it’s not Ankhseram doing any of it, because that God wouldn’t be so… soft, he thinks might be the word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all inconvenient, and attracts more attention to him than he ever wanted, and offends him on every level just for the fact that prayers are being answered that weren’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>delivered</span>
  </em>
  <span> properly, but it’s not the sort of cruelty he’d expect from Ankhseram.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t think of what other God he’d offended though, or why any would go through that sort of effort if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> offended any.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some of the cultists keep pressuring him to ask for bigger things, like wisdom or mystical knowledge or a demon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zeref’s pretty sure if he asks for any sort of knowledge, he’s going to get a god’s brain shoved right up against his own, in the worst way possible, the way things are going, but it’d be too suspicious if he doesn’t ask for </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> big soon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He asks for a demon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gets another cat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This one’s on fire, and spits fireballs, and apparently eats humans.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And also lights his bed on fire, as well as most of the others in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cultists take it away for study.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two days later, they have to move because the entire building burns down in a flash of hellfire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cultists tell him to request a book of ancient knowledge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They get the Tome of Erryka, which, predictably, tries to eat the fingers off everyone who opens it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Zeref hadn’t already read the book cover to cover, he might be appreciative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He asks for an ancient scroll and gets a recording of farming practices in Ethelos over seven hundred years ago, which is… perhaps surprisingly nice, because Zeref remembers his father, and reading even something so boring about his ancestral homeland is not unwelcome, though the cultists hardly see it that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then they have him ask for a creature no one in the world has ever seen, and only the fact that Zeref </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> seen multiple gods, in-person, keeps him from refusing that one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once more, he gets a cat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It looks like a completely normal cat, clearly still a baby, but the first one had poison and the second had hellfire and none of the cultists are willing to get close, now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kitten sneezes and launches itself off the bed, wings appearing a moment later and leaving it to hover dejectedly in the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It mewls pitifully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No matter how deep he buries his magic, Zeref can understand an animal’s cry for its mother effortlessly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or is it only that the cat sounds more human than most…?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Zeref finds which God is messing with him, he’s going to make them </span>
  <em>
    <span>regret it</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cat half-flies, half-hops its way back to his bed, and keeps crying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If it weren’t for the fact that some of the bigger cults are already sending delegations due to his ‘favored’ status, he’d burn the place down himself and just-</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Leave</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Reborn doesn’t go to Minstrel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> he doesn’t go to Minstrel, why did Skull </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> think he would, no, Reborn wants to go to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Bosco</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to tangle with the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Avatar cult</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because why should he ‘chase leads’ when starting a ruckus there will make Zeref </span>
  <em>
    <span>come to him</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span>-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A spell just barely grazes the side of his head, and once again Skull wonders if Reborn can read minds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s honestly too afraid to ask at this point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>[Maybe Leon reads minds and Reborn takes the credit.] Oodako signs energetically,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skull glances up, only for his eyes to meet Leon’s soulless black ones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never going to be able to sleep peacefully again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries to pretend it’s honestly because of Leon, and not because Reborn is dragging him back to Bosco, and to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>cult</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skull wishes he weren’t afraid.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Reborn’s not stupid. By the time they reach Bosco proper, even Skull’s showmanship can’t cover up the trembling in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaves Leon with strict orders to protect the civilian, and slips out to do the rest of the legwork on his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In all honesty, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> heard about the favored cultists, before the Lackey brought it up. He hadn’t been asking those sorts of questions, though he won’t make that mistake again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But for all that he’s never been too partial to the cults, he’s still very aware of them and their movements. Some of the bigger ones have to be considered before certain assassinations, just for how much of a problem they can cause afterwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Avatar’s branch in Bosco is one of their largest, and if a ‘favored cultist’ will be brought anywhere, he knows, it’ll be here.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Especially</span>
  </em>
  <span> with what the Lackey’s told him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reborn doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need</span>
  </em>
  <span> to chase that lead, because if he waits here long enough, it’ll come to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Zeref will too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reborn has the Lackey’s information of course, to find their base, but Zeref doesn’t. He’s actually impressed at the ruthlessness of using a cultist as sacrificial bait to find it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s good to know that not </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> of Zeref’s reputation is a lie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, how to slip through the wards…?</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Zeref didn’t expect the Avatars to be so </span>
  <em>
    <span>forceful</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Perhaps that’s his fault though, it really should have been obvious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything hurts, and keeping his magic clamped down to be undetectable just makes it </span>
  <em>
    <span>worse</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little ways away, he hears the kitten mewling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature keeps trying to make a magician’s bond with him, which would be fascinating on it’s own - animals, even intelligent ones, have never been recorded as being </span>
  <em>
    <span>capable</span>
  </em>
  <span> of that - except for the fact that bonding with the cat will reveal his magic to everyone and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t do that yet</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though it’s amusing, how the Avatar cultists think such pathetic chains can hold him. Even though they don’t know who he is, he can still think of over a </span>
  <em>
    <span>dozen</span>
  </em>
  <span> mages the chains wouldn’t even slow down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...though it might be unfair to count Reborn and Fairy Tail in that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okay so he knows </span>
  <em>
    <span>two</span>
  </em>
  <span> other mages.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(He has to wonder why they bothered, considering he’s been acting like a magicless person.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(It seemed like a good motive to join a cult that worships a </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>black</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span> wizard - surely the desire for magic would be an acceptable cause?)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(He’s still not quite sure why the priests all insisted that his dream was offensive and should not be pursued.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a few days of uncomfortable boredom before they make it across the sea into Bosco, and then an even </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> uncomfortable carriage ride done blindfolded through the country.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then they arrive to a surprisingly normal-looking city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s almost disappointed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was expecting a castle, at the very </span>
  <em>
    <span>least</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>If Reborn had any room to move, he would </span>
  <em>
    <span>strangle the Lackey to </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>death</em>
  </b>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if it took an entire lunar </span>
  <em>
    <span>cycle</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idiot whimpers apologies, as though Reborn is even </span>
  <em>
    <span>close</span>
  </em>
  <span> to a forgiving mood, as though the cultists will care at </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> for how sorry he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The chains are heavy weights, clamping his magic and dragging it down, making it sluggish and slow to respond, and the amount of focus it takes to drag even a single </span>
  <em>
    <span>spark</span>
  </em>
  <span> somewhere he can use it is almost enough to make lights dance before his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He breathes, as deep as the chains will let him.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There’s a trick to everything, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks, and if Zeref didn’t try binding his own magic before a suicide attempt at least once Reborn will eat </span>
  <em>
    <span>Leon</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s possible to get out of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All he has to do is find out </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he can murder the circus freak in the most </span>
  <em>
    <span>excruciating way possible</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And hunt down Zeref right after.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’d be a shame to miss their second anniversary after all.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>